Chris & Nancy by Irvin Muchnick Page A

journalist to report to a wide audience that the Fayette County crime scene investigation was focusing on murder-suicide. Minutes later the WWE website’s own home page was headlined, “Double Murder-Suicide,” with the text: “It has been ruled that the deaths . . . were the result of a double murder-suicide from within the home. WWE .com will have more as soon as it becomes available.”
    â€œHere is what has always bothered me,” Evans said in a later email to me. “I got a tip about the murder not long after the investigators arrived, and it came from inside the gates. Pretty fresh you would think, right? I started heading immediately to Fayette County. On my way, a radio reporter from Canada called me (he was given my cell number by our staff in Atlanta) and he wanted to know about the murders and suicide. He said it was already on the WWE web page. How did that happen so fast? My source couldn’t reveal the names at the time but gave me the location. However, there it was already in full detail for the whole world to read. How did that happen?”
    The last hour of the Benoit tribute forged ahead on USA cable, after which the repeat feed to the West Coast was broadcast intact. The WWE website home page, alongside the news bulletin, continued to stream a tribute video package along with exclusive studio-produced testimonials.
    Inside the ring and in TV skits, WWE ’s verbal agility is always striking, and it was on full display here. The company had concealed the overwhelming suspicion of murder-suicide, of which at least higher-ups had been aware since, at the latest, around the hour of four to five o’clock eastern time. Turning on a dime, WWE .com now exaggerated the report of the preponderant investigative theory, calling it a “ruling.” At the same time, the phrase “within the home” continued to keep the identity of the killer vague. Recalling the murder of comic actor Phil Hartman by his wife, many of Chris’s fans continued to hold out the perverse hope that Nancy, and not Chris, would prove to be the perpetrator.
    Of course, that was not to be. The next night, at the start of another cable show, on the Sci Fi network, McMahon said Chris Benoit would never be mentioned again on WWE television. By then all references to Benoit had been expunged from the website, and all Benoit-related videos and merchandise were being pulled from physical and virtual store shelves “as facts emerged surrounding the case,” according to the company’s timeline. The passive construction “as facts emerged” was key. When they emerged to Vince McMahon did not compute; only when they emerged to the public at a pace and in a manner McMahon tightly controlled.
    It was the end of the following week, Friday, July 6 , by the time McMahon got around to calling Mike Benoit in Alberta. “I suppose that I could have called earlier,” McMahon said. “But we were both trying to deal with this.”
    Screening calls, Benoit heard the message live as it came through on his answering machine. He chose not to pick up. Nor would he ever return McMahon’s call.
    [ 1 ]. The sheriff did not release the full Internet and email history, images, and video files, asserting that they were exempt under Georgia open records law: “None of this information is relevant to the incident and had any bearing on the investigation.” Whether the entirety of the computer’s Internet and email history was irrelevant seems highly questionable, but at least the assertion of a legal exemption was made directly. As will be seen later, the sheriff in other areas fudged the very existence of a supporting record.
    [ 2 ]. The publicly released home answering machine messages would include a series of late Monday afternoon/early Monday evening calls from Nancy’s parents, Paul and Maureen Toffoloni, escalating in confusion and worry. Though neither DeMarco nor